The Lamp
by Sylvarant Queen
Summary: Spoilers! Kratos broke Martel's lamp and needs Dirk to fix it. Pairings: Colette x Genis, Presea x Zelos, and more to come...


Hi! I am new !

Please review! This is part one.

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**The Lamp**

As Kratos paced the floor in one of the many, vacant rooms of Yggdrasil's castle, he thought about the past. He had recently witnessed Lloyd's group saving Clara on the beach in Izoold. Clara had been transformed into a grotesque monster by an exsphere equipped without a key crest. The same fate that had befallen numerous test subjects of Cruxis. The same fate had also claimed Anna.

Clara's husband, Dorr, had kept her in a prison cell in the basement of his house. He was waiting to find a way to cure her. Even though it was unlikely such a cure would ever come, he made deals with the Desians. Inside, he knew the Desians wouldn't ever cure his wife, but just like he fooled himself into believing Kilia was still alive, he fooled himself into believing there might still be a way to save Clara. He put the whole town in danger just to try to save one woman.

Kratos had always believed, no, KNOWN that once someone had been mutated by an exsphere, there was no way to restore them to the way they once were. But now, that had been proven false. The only reason he had been able to bear living after what he did to Anna was because he knew he had no other options but to free her from the nightmare of having to live in that form. Anna had begged for death. Keeping her alive would have just been selfish on Kratos's part and prolonged Anna's suffering. There was no reason to force Anna to live when it was impossible for her to live a real life. There was no way to reverse the effects of the exsphere's mutation, right? There was no way for Kratos to know that his then infant son would some day play a part in finding a cure for this "incurable" condition, right? So there was no reason to keep her alive, right? Right?

Clara's husband kept her alive, and now she's back. Dorr was willing to sacrifice everything to save Clara, even a whole town. If only Kratos had waited. Maybe he could have kept her locked up in a room somewhere… A basement… A prison cell… Anything…

Kratos closed his eyes. "Anna…" He could have had her back now too. If only…

He heard the sound of glass shattering. He went over to the next room to see Mithos sitting on the floor with a broken lamp, a small bloody cuts appearing on his hands as he frantically tried to piece it back together. "Sis! I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to break your lamp! I thought if I…--Kratos!" He spotted Kratos and suddenly became cool and collected again.

"I heard something break."

"I came in here just now to find Martel's lamp broken on the floor. You're the only one that was on this floor so…"

"I was in the other room…"

"I need you to take this down and get a replica made immediately. Once Martel awakens I want all her things in the same shape they were in before."

Kratos started to argue then decided against it. He waited for Yggdrasil to leave before leaving scooping the broken pieces up. He found a bag to store them in. Then he went to find a dwarf because only a dwarf could remake the lamp to a satisfactory condition again. There were only two he knew of in the two worlds and only one that didn't have a grudge against Cruxis. So he was off to visit Lloyd's 'dad.'

When he arrived at Dirk's house, he saw them. Right out in the broad daylight, in front of Goddess and everybody, Genis was hugging and kissing on Colette.

"Ew…" Kratos thought for a moment. During their travels, he always thought Colette had a thing for Lloyd, but apparently, he was wrong…

"Oh, Genis! You're so mature for your age. I'm so glad we were able to find some time alone together. I had always wanted to confess my feelings for you, but I felt like a… you know…"

"Child molester?" Genis said, running his fingers through Colette's golden locks.

"That's such a strong word… Like 'statutory rape.' It's not rape. And I don't even know what 'statutory' means." The young Chosen giggled.

"It means 'of, pertaining to, or of the nature of a statute.'"

"What's a statute?" Colette said, tilting her head to the side, cutely.

"An enactment made by a legislature and expressed in a formal document."

Colette just stared in awe. "That's what I like in a man--the ability to recite from a dictionary as if he were a human copy paste tool."

Genis sat up in Colette's lap, "What's copy paste?"

Kratos stared at the two for a few moments, then backed away slowly. After taking a few minutes to recover, he decided to sneak a peak in the house. No doubt if Genis and Colette were here, Lloyd would be here too. Kratos had wanted to confront the dwarf without Lloyd's presence. It would have been much easier if Dirk hadn't learned of Kratos's betrayal yet, but now the likeliness of that was rather low. After walking around to the back of Dirk's house, he spotted something else that caught him off guard.

Presea was staring at a pond watching Zelos throw rocks into it. The red haired Chosen was trying to skip the rocks across the surface of the water, but they always just sank. "I never thought I would ever say this, but I suck," he laughed, watching the 12th rock he'd thrown since Kratos showed up sink into the pond.

Presea walked over. "May I try?" She held out a hand towards the Chosen.

"Sure, be my guest." Zelos handed her a few stones. "But, I'm warning you. It's impossible. Don't feel bad if you can't do it. I mean, even I can't…" He cut himself off. In her first try, Presea managed to skip the stone seven times across the water's surface before it hit the bank on the other side of the pond and sank. "Well, I guess I should have expected as much from my cute, little hunny."

"I don't remember learning how to do that. I know I must've learned it, but it's all a blur now." Presea stared ahead vacantly. "I lost so many years. Even the time before I became an experiment of Cruxis is fuzzy in my mind." She looked down. "I don't recall learning how to fight with an axe either. It's like I just know how. I don't have any memories of training to fight or anything."

"Hey, I wish I could forget all the time I spent in school! No interest in remembering such boring memories," Zelos laughed.

Presea turned to Zelos, "I don't remember Dad dying. I just remember he was sick and now he's dead. A huge part of my life is gone. It was taken from me and now I can never get it back."

"A sad part of your life is gone." Zelos said in a comforting voice. "Isn't it better to not remember those things? If you don't remember the parts of your life that made you sad, it's like they never happened and you can focus more on the good things. It's easier that way."

"I guess." She returned her gaze to the water. The fish, thankful that the pointless barrage of rocks that had brought a new age of terror into their little fish world had finally ceased, started reappearing. She stared at the fish, swimming around aimlessly counting their wounded. Truly this was a day that would go down into fish infamy. This day will forever be known as 'the day the sky rained terror… in the form of rocks...' And thus the new anti-rock terrorism campaign began. The fish would build new shelters, have 'rock drills' so they would be prepared to evacuate should this ever occur again, and perform 'rock searches' on all foreign fish entering their territory. Who knows if one day a fish might learn to throw rocks? This was an all out war against an unknown enemy and these fish meant business!

Zelos sat down on the grass. Presea walked over to him. "Whatever will be will be. You can't change things. Don't dwell on bad things too much or it'll just get you down." Zelos looked up at Presea.

"I suppose." Presea sat down beside Zelos. "I just keep thinking about all my lost time when I'm by myself. I feel better when I have someone around me."

"Because it's a distraction. It takes your mind off your own problems when you have to deal with other people's problems. So you would naturally feel better with everyone else around."

Presea leaned up against Zelos. "I think I feel best when you're the only one around."

"That's… Huh?"

Presea kissed Zelos hard on the mouth. Zelos, shocked, broke the kiss. "Whoa! OK, I know I seem like the perfect man and all but… You need to wait a few years or find someone more your age." Zelos said, still in shock from Presea's forwardness.

"You just said I'm your hunny earlier." Presea said with a slightly confused look on her face. She had no clue why Zelos found her actions odd considering the way he always acts around women.

"Heck. I've called Lloyd 'hunny' before. And the brat, I mean Genis, has a crush on you, you know." Zelos thought Presea was cute, but he definitely wasn't a pedophile. Plus, she wasn't quite as voluptuous as the girl Zelos has had his eye on.

"Genis?" Presea looked a little confused. "I'm not a pedophile. And, I think he's over it now. I saw him eyeing Colette the other day."

"Ew…" Zelos temporarily forgot about the current situation long enough to picture Genis and Colette making out, running their hands through each other's hair, possibly sticking their tongues in each other's mouths a bit… A little strand of saliva strung between them when they pull apart… "Ew…" Time to stop thinking about that!

"And besides, I'm older than I look."

"But you're younger than me at least."

"I'm twenty-eight."

"Wow… So you're six years older than me?"

"Yes."

"So then, you're really too old for me."

"Yes."

"So you'll be the one going after someone much younger than you, but it'll look like I'm the pedophile."

"Yes."

"That wasn't a question."

"Yes."

"Look. It's a little weird."

"Sheena will never be interested in you, and if she ever was with you, she'd just be picturing Lloyd while you two did it. Colette also prefers Lloyd to you. So you'd be her second choice, unless Genis gets to her first. Then you're third. Raine sees you as inferior. Even if you managed to end up with her, you would always be inferior in her mind. And some random girl would just like you for your title. I'm the only logical choice." Presea said flatly.

Zelos wasn't sure how to respond to such a statement. He'd never really considered the options. Well, he'd never really considered the thought of there being an option to be more specific. He was supposed to wait for an angel from Cruxis to assign a wife for him just for the sake continuing the Mana bloodline. Not like he could actually chose. But now that he was thinking about it, after all this is over, he won't have to wait for that to happen. Either Colette will become Martel's vessel and Zelos won't have to be the Chosen anymore, or Colette will not be adequate and Mithos will turn on Zelos and try using him instead. Zelos really hoped the latter wouldn't be the case. And if Lloyd somehow found a way to defeat Mithos, they would abolish the Chosen system most definitely. Or, if Lloyd failed, Mithos would kill them all. Either way, dead or alive, Zelos is free of the Chosen system.

And what Presea said was, sadly, true. He couldn't ever be serious about one of his fan girls. The girl he wanted the most only wanted Lloyd. If he ever got Sheena, which was so unlikely it wasn't even funny, she would just be thinking about Lloyd the whole time. Heck, all the girls seemed to have a thing for Lloyd. Zelos didn't get it. All the girls in Tethe'alla wanted him, but the only girls Zelos actually enjoyed being around, all like Lloyd the most. Except…

"Presea…" Zelos pulled Presea near him. "You're right." He started kissing her, she kissed back. They lay back in the grass and started…

"Ew…" Kratos remembered that he didn't have to watch this. So why was he watching it? He got up and decided since the only people outside seem to be preoccupied, he could just walk up and look in the house.

He spotted Lloyd, Raine, Regal, and Dirk, talking about something, probably unimportant. Kratos looked in his bag again. He thought it might be easier to just ask Altessa to fix it. That could also spare him from having to witness anymore strange events like the two he'd just watched. He pictured Genis licking Colette's neck and his running his fingers down her-- "Ew…" However, staying would give him another opportunity to act all full of himself and important in front of Lloyd again. And Kratos so relished in doing that. He would probably start out by saying something like "…" and then finish the conversation with a "…" Kratos thought about it for a while and smiled inwardly…

After deciding to stay, he crept up to the window to try to catch their conversation. It could be of some interest.


End file.
